


Little Lynx

by bideru



Series: Tales from Silvermoon [1]
Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: Copious amounts of alcohol - Freeform, F/M, Featuring Koltira Deathweaver (alive and dead), Fluff and Angst, Major Character Undeath, Mentions of Sex, Minor Appearances of Major Canonical Characters, Minor Violence, a bushel of farstriders, a handful of dark rangers when they were alive, and one forsaken mail boi i now adore, and y'know everyone who died to the scourge, but velonara "lives" because she's undead so technically nobody dies okay?, halduron really hates arthas fucking menethil okay?, i have no idea what made this happen, kael'thas is there for like two seconds, liadrin has exactly one line i'm so sorry, one very upset zul'jin, rommath isn't always a bastard, sylvanas is spoken of in hushed whispers, the death is velonara's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24211186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bideru/pseuds/bideru
Summary: She took him with her when she died.
Relationships: Halduron Brightwing/Dark Ranger Velonara, Liadrin/Lor'themar Theron
Series: Tales from Silvermoon [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1747684
Comments: 10
Kudos: 14





	Little Lynx

**Author's Note:**

> I was trying to write a Rommath fic. And somehow got this. I'm not entirely sure happened, or where this ship came from. I blame all of you, because I had no thoughts or concern for Halduron Brightwing until I came to AO3, but now I will go down with this crackship.
> 
> EDIT: Little Lynx now has a sequel, set (almost) in present day. Link at the bottom!

_“I will see you soon,” she had promised him. “It's only a short reconnaissance near Thalassian Pass.”_

_He’d checked the girth of her hawkstrider’s saddle, blonde hair falling into his eyes. Slipping the bridle over the patient bird’s head, he’d carefully adjusted straps which did not need adjusting._

_“Halduron!” she’d laughed. “I can tack my hawkstrider myself!” It spoke to her nerves that she’d allowed him this, allowed him to do something as simple as saddle and bridle her mount. He’d turned to face her, a grin smashing his own nerves down, and slung an arm about her waist to pull her forward, a decidedly undignified squawk escaping her lips. He’d grinned and kissed her, long and slow, his hand in her hair._

_Farstriders leaving the Enclave was nothing new. They had been separated before and endured, and they would do so again, and again, and again. But that day had been her first assignment in the company of Ranger General Sylvanas Windrunner. She had been only a ranger, handpicked at that, in the company of captains and lieutenants, and to have risen in status so quickly, to be given such an important mission, had her shaking in her boots. (Which he had teased her for several times already, and which she had smacked him for once or twice.)_

_“I know,” he’d breathed against her lips. “I just want to savor this. You’ll come back a Captain. Maybe Sylvanas’s right hand.”_

_She’d colored, her cheeks a pleasant pink he’d found alluring and adorable in the dawn light. “Oh shut up,” she’d snapped, but she was pleased. She’d allowed him to walk her outside. Few others were awake, save for the night watch and Sylvanas’s company. He’d made a step with his hands and helped her mount._

_“I’ll be a beast if you don’t make at least Lieutenant,” he’d sworn._

_“You’re already a beast,” she’d laughed. She’d leaned down and placed a hand on his cheek, and he’d leaned up to press another kiss －_ _this one quick, for they were in the presence of their superior －_ _to her lips, and then Sylvanas was barking for the company to move out._

_He leaned against a tree and watched Velonara ride away, until the sapphire of her hawkstrider’s feathers and the gold of her hair faded into the morning sun._

* * *

Only this morning, Ranger Captain Halduron Brightwing had been concerned with the raiding parties the Amani had been sending on the sin’dorei merchants. This morning, he had been angry at the reports of another herd of Farstrider hawkstriders missing, blood and feathers in their place. He’d promised a bottle of wine for every troll ear his rangers brought him (“I’ll send for Lightdamned Sun-Touched Special Reserve from the city - a whole case if you bring back the head!”). He envied the Halduron Brightwing he’d been this morning. NaÏve. Ignorant. It had all changed when a runner had come crashing through the woods, making enough noise to alert every troll in Quel’Thalas of their camp, his eyes wide, screaming incoherently about risen corpses that Halduron had any idea anything was any different at all.

Captain Lenara of the Ranger Lord’s company arrived not long after, a bit quieter, a bit more composed, but no less terrified. Halduron had been unsuccessful in getting the runner to say anything useful, and he turned at the sound of hawkstrider claws in the brush, frustration plain on his face. Lenara did not even dismount, did not look at the sobbing runner, collapsed in his lieutenant’s arms. She fixed her icy, frightened eyes on Halduron and, raising her voice to be heard over the runner, said as steadily as she could:

“The undead march on Quel’Thalas. Thalassian Pass has fallen.”

Commotion erupted throughout the company. Halduron had heard the rumors, most of the Farstriders this far south had. He’d dismissed them to Ranger Lord Lor’themar Theron as nothing more than hawkstrider shit. The dead stay dead. It was known. Many of his rangers felt the same and were yelling angrily at Lenara, telling her off for her bad humor. A small handful were afraid, had gasped at her words. Lieutenant Sedina’s hands had flown to her face. The runner wailed. 

Halduron saw, by the paleness in Lenara’s face, that this was no hawkstrider shit. The fact that this was _Lenara_ , of all elves, and it was _Lor’themar_ who’d sent her… 

He paled.

He barked orders at his rangers, dismissed Lenara with orders to ride north, and smacked the shit out of the runner. “Run and sob!” he shrieked at the poor elf. “Farstrider Enclave is due northeast!” He vaulted atop his own hawkstrider and gave the order to move out.

Dusk was falling when it happened. They were half a day away from Morningstar, the only real city in the south, nestled at the base of the great tree Thas’alah, when he felt a sudden spasm of fear, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe. 

* * *

_The waves lapped at the shore, the sound of the gulls far off and the babbling of murlocs farther still. They should have been tired －_ _Sylvanas had worked them hard, a marathon of foot races, tree climbing, and laps there and back from the Isle of Tribulations －_ _and they were, but it was the good kind of tired, the kind that spoke of hardships endured and trials survived and bonds strengthened. The Captains and Ranger Lords and Sylvanas were well aware that they had left camp, but Halduron chose to believe that they had “snuck” down to the beaches with as many wineskins and bottles as they could carry, laughing and whooping all the way._

_“Animals, all of you,” Velonara scoffed, her hair silver in the moonlight. She sat with her friends, with Alina and Lenara and Lilana, and Halduron couldn’t help himself, swaying drunkenly on the uneven sand, as he and Lor’themar passed a pipe packed with bloodthistle between them. The girls giggled._

_“She called us animals,” he said, taking a deep pull on the pipe._

_“She did,” agreed Lor’themar. Like Halduron, he was clad only in his smallclothes, long, cornsilk hair loose and dripping from playing in the bay._

_“Some of them are quite good looking, at least,” Lilana whispered, drink making her voice loud and her ears red, and she stared dreamily in the direction of a group of rangers scuffling in the sand._

_“Am I quite good looking?” Halduron teased, grin obnoxious and eyes fixed on Velonara. She didn’t answer, electing instead to sip －_ _gulp －_ _from her wineskin, but the blush spreading on her cheeks, her nose, her ears, was enough. Her friends giggled again, as Halduron handed Lor’themar the pipe and took first one step, and then another towards them._

_“Brightwing…” Velonara’s voice was wary, echoing slightly against the throat of the wineskin, and Halduron flashed her a grin that showed entirely too much fang._

_“You need to lighten up,” he told her, to the shrieks and ‘oooh’s of her friends, so close they were nearly touching, he almost on top of her. When he spoke, he felt his own breath, caressing her face and blowing back against his own. “You should be more…_ animal _.”_

 _There was a shriek, and she was in his arms. He had never been so bold. He had never been so brazen, and he half expected her to slap him. The wine was lost, leaking into the sand in her place, and her friends were shouting and Lor’themar was laughing. Velonara was cursing, but he could_ hear _the upward curve of her lips, the laugh she was desperately trying to suppress, as he ran towards the water, and then he threw her, all pretense and ceremony forgotten, into the bay and dove in after her. His hands found her underwater and they resurfaced together, his arm about her waist._

_“I’ve saved you!” he declared, tipsy and raw and genuine under the moonlight._

_“You nearly drowned me!” Velonara was not quite angry with him, though she was trying to be. She was not resisting him at all. The hands on his chest were soft and warm, and though the water was not deep, her leg had snaked its way around his waist in a way that made him acutely aware of every inch of his own skin. His heart hammered, and he dared pull her closer to him, flush against his chest._

_“You liked it,” he challenged, his face close enough to count every one of her eyelashes. Her pupils were blown wide; perhaps he was too drunk but it seemed she had wrapped both legs around him, and being ensconced between her thighs was affecting him terribly. He stiffened when she licked her lips, and he knew she’d felt it._

_“Maybe I did,” she murmured. Her hands were on his shoulders and he felt a light pull as she played with a lock of his hair. He licked his own lips in anticipation._

_“Vel－”_

_Her lips were soft against his, for the briefest moment, and it was almost sweet. Sweet and_ hungry _, as her hand moved up his neck and behind his head, pressing him to her, crushing her lips to his, and when he felt all the months and years of frustration release. She tasted of wine and salt and something else, something organic and pure, something wholly_ Velonara _, and Halduron could only hang on as she took the reins, as she led him, and knew he would follow her from then on, wherever she went._

* * *

He hadn’t learned of her death for eight days. For five days, all he could be certain of were the deaths of his own company and then of Lor’themar’s, when he caught up to his superior at An’owyn. There’d been rangers on duty there, and they were dead too. Halduron helped set fire to the funeral pyre for Merriel and Faltora. His mouth settled in a grim line of own accord when a ragged Marillion reported that the third, Koltira, was missing. 

On the sixth day, they learned of the death of the Ranger General, and of her resurrection as a banshee, and the mourning and horror that descended on the two companies was palpable. Halduron felt frozen. Sylvanas Windrunner had been a hard teacher and rarely put up with Halduron’s shit, and Sylvanas Windrunner had more than once given him such vicious punishment for his many, _many_ fuck ups as a recruit, but by the Sunwell, he had loved her. Lor’themar had loved her, as had every single Farstrider under her command. The absolute devastation caused by the news of her death left the order momentarily floundering. How were they supposed to go on? Who would they turn to for guidance? Halduron found himself with tears in his eyes as he turned away from the messenger and towards his friend, but Lor’themar was not there. Lor’themar had stood up, his own face pale and tight, and the pain laid bare was no longer from the eye missing under the many bandages. His single remaining eye wept openly in a way Halduron had not seen in the past six centuries, but when he spoke, his voice was clear and strong.

“The loss of Sylvanas is a tragedy for Quel’Thalas. No one else can match her outstanding leadership, her cunning tactics, or her biting wit.” He swallowed, not entirely masking the sob that threatened to overtake him, and somewhere behind him someone wailed. “And it is a bigger tragedy that we are, at present, unable to mourn. We must fight on. The Scourge is moving north, towards the Sunwell, towards the city! And though Silvermoon has not fallen in all its seven thousand years, we must act as if it can! The Scourge ends at the gates!” Lor’themar raised his fist, his face still wet with tears, and several rangers echoed him. 

“The gates!”

“We will kill those unholy creatures and they will stay dead!”

More voices joined the others. “They'll stay dead!”

“We’ll avenge all who have fallen to the Scourge! Their deaths will not be in vain!” 

Halduron found himself joining the rangers’ cheering, his own fist raised.

“Avenge Sylvanas!” Lor’themar cried.

“Avenge Sylvanas!” the Farstriders echoed.

“For Silvermoon!” 

“ _For Silvermoon!_ ”

Lor’themar’s eye found Halduron’s, and in that moment, Halduron loved him too. By the Light, by the Sunwell, and by Silvermoon herself, he loved him.

* * *

_“Does it feel better?”_

_Velonara had not been asleep, had waited for him. Had known Halduron would not sleep alone, could not be alone tonight. She sat, her cloak wrapped tight around her to ward off the faint chill of the Amani Mountains, and when Halduron had appeared, silent as the dead, she had opened her cloak and allowed him to slot himself against her. They sat, Halduron knew not how long, and he was not a comfortable thing pressed to her, his body hard like the iron of an arrowhead, but she was soft and warm, and he soon felt himself relax against her. She had spread his cloak over them, and it was only now that he had laid his head in her lap that she spoke, her voice a whisper on the wind._

_Something inside Halduron trembled. The hand on her thigh became a fist, pressed fingers down to stop the shaking. “No,” he admitted bitterly. And the anger he’d carried with him, the hatred that had steeled him, that had held him up, that had kept him going since finding Lor’themar, finally, finally broke. “No, it doesn’t.” He pressed his face into Velonara’s thigh, not willing to let her see the crybaby he’d thought he’d left behind._

_A few days’ journey north, in a safer outpost farther from the trolls, Lor’themar lay recovering. He had insisted it was not Halduron’s fault－ and indeed, it wasn’t, because Halduron was not there nor on patrol nearby－ but Halduron felt so nonetheless. His friend had nearly died because of an Amani attack, his innards almost pulled out but for Halduron’s gut feeling of wrongness, and if Halduron had had that gut feeling earlier, he would be here with them now, not fighting off infection with Galell and Drathir watching over him at the outpost and Liadrin worrying herself sick here. Halduron had made tracking the monster Zul’jin his number one priority, had enlisted the help of his and Lor’themar’s most trusted friends._

_They had not held back when they’d found him._

_It was Koltira who’d gouged out the troll’s eye. He’d been a man possessed, and the act had driven the rest of them into a frenzy. Liadrin had pleaded with them for mercy, that they should kill the beast only, and Halduron had rounded on her, anger and hatred pouring from him like a flood, and thundered, “THIS IS THE BEAST WHO ALMOST MURDERED LOR’THEMAR! BEST HE SEE WHAT IT FEELS LIKE!” Liadrin had stared at him, eyes wide and face pale, before running off. In a fury, he stabbed the troll in the gut, again and again, as Zul’jin screamed hideously and a roar of approval went up from the rangers. He took out his anger at Lor’themar’s injuries, at Zul’jin, at having screamed at Liadrin, on the troll, and only dimly did it register that he gave the chieftain the same sort of injury that Zul’jin had given his friend._

_He could feel Velonara’s fingers stroking his hair, a soft, soothing sensation. She said nothing, but he knew she had been furious too, had been just as ready as he to slit the troll chieftain’s throat upon his capture. It was she whose voice had been among the first and the loudest to agree when he growled he wanted Zul’jin brought to Lor’themar alive (perhaps in pieces, but definitely alive) for his friend to decide his fate. She had kindly curbed her desire for vengeance to keep watch during the torture, the only sane one in the lot of them; it wouldn’t do to be ambushed by trolls now. She probably knew he had yelled at Liadrin._

_He felt angry and terrible and hurt and so very tired. He could hear the jeers and screeching of the rangers, the shrieking of the troll chieftain, and he wanted to pick himself back up and join them. He wanted to cover his ears and hide like the crybaby he’d once been. He wanted to find Liadrin and apologize, and go to the outpost and see his friend, and close his hands around Zul’jin’s throat and watch with animalistic glee as the light faded from the monster’s eyes._

_He forced himself to sit up, and wiped his face with his cloak. Velonara did not comment on his tears and he was grateful for that, for inside he was still wobbly, sure to fall at the slightest misstep. No, that wasn’t her way. She pressed a skin in his hand, and a strip of jerky, and pulled a strip for herself, her blue eyes looking pointedly at him until he forced himself to eat, overcome with a rush of love. How strong she was for him! How strong she’d make him look to his company! He drank the water she’d given him with relish－ he could not remember when he’d last had a drop to drink－ and kissed her. She’d rolled her eyes at him, a smile on her lips, and shooed him away with a look, a look that said plainly,_ I’ll be here. I’ll be here when the world falls apart.

_Halduron Brightwing picked himself and stomped back to his troop, who whooped at his reappearance, and Zul’jin, who did not._

_“Had yourself a victory fuck, did you, Brightwing?” Faltora asked crassly. There were skins and bottles of alcohol strewn about now, the smell of bloodthistle smoke in the air. They were all covered in blood－ troll blood－ and looked ghastly. Halduron grinned cheekily._

_“Wouldn’t you?” he said, taking a bottle for himself as the rangers－ his and Lor’themar’s and Velonara’s friends－ all jeered and cheered and shouted. Lenara punched him in the arm good naturedly. They didn’t need to know the truth. And at some point, Velonara was relieved of her watch and walked into a group of very inebriated Farstriders, who had all forgotten about Faltora’s words but had not forgotten that Halduron Brightwing had been vicious and swift and strong in his vengeance against the troll who had nearly killed Lor’themar._

* * *

It was Lor’themar who’d told him. As Sylvanas’s second in command, and now acting Ranger General, all messages and missives were sent directly to him. Sometimes they were given to Halduron, and Halduron would take them - scraps of paper, bits of cloth, a charred leaf or two, all hastily covered in scribbles - and pass them along. Later, he would wonder if he had held the missive with her name on it. If he had held the news of her death in his own hands. The thought had unsettled him for days. 

It was very early in the morning, not far past midnight. The skies were clear. They had positioned themselves between the river and the Shepherd’s Gate, a flat stretch of land with visibility for miles. Scouts estimated they had until dawn. Runners poured in constantly: from Silvermoon with orders from the King and the Convocation and the Grand Magister, from scouts with reports on Scourge forces and numbers and death tolls, from outrunners bearing whatever supplies they could carry on their backs. The worst were always the runners who came with news of who had been killed and risen as Scourge. Halduron could always tell. Those runners were always pale, their mouths set in a thin line, and as soon as Lor’themar dismissed them, they went either to drink or to cry. 

He looked at the sound of a bird call, following the noise to its maker, the acting Ranger General. Wondering what Lor’themar wanted now _－_ _hopefully a stiff drink_ , Halduron wished grimly _－_ he swung gracefully down from his tree, and crept over to where his friend sat perched on a rock, the makings of the tiniest fire before him. Lor’themar burned every missive, but would not allow any ongoing fire. The undead seemed to like the light of it, though the flames burned clean through most of their bodies.

For several minutes Lor’themar would not look at him, poking at his tiny fire. Scraps of messages curled in the embers, burning easily and making more smoke than flame. Halduron leaned on the rock and waited. Though his friend could slay a troll or twenty with ease (and who couldn’t? It wasn’t like trolls were _elves_ ), his friend was a gentle soul, and the many elf deaths were affecting him. He showed that pain only to Halduron, allowed only his best and truest friend to know that inside he was not as strong as he seemed.

“Several new missives,” Lor’themar said quietly, finally.

“Mm.” Halduron crossed his arms, pretending to listen only as a courtesy. It was a game they played, and he couldn’t say for certain why he played it. He knew that Lor’themar knew that he waited for news, for confirmation, that she was… There were so many Farstriders missing, unaccounted for. Some had been found dead and had been burned. Some had been found alive and had been welcomed into this, the last stand before the city. And some… 

Lor’themar pulled a few pieces of parchment from his tunic. It was ripped now, bloodied in places. He hesitated, and Halduron pretended not to watch as Lor’themar pulled a scrap from the top of the pile. He held onto this one, and sprinkled the others evenly in his small fire, watching them burn, and Halduron held his breath as he himself burned inside until finally his friend sighed, and held out the scrap, and Halduron had to resist the urge to snatch it greedily, taking it instead as carelessly as he could.

“Lilana came back tonight,” Lor’themar said heavily, and he was watching his friend as he spoke. Halduron remembered _－_ Lilana had come in looking rough, her hawkstrider missing several patches of feathers, and she’d stood with her face in the bird’s neck for a long time before reporting to the Ranger Lord. Lilana was not of either of their companies _－_ Halduron couldn’t remember at the moment who she belonged to _－_ but her superior had been killed along with most of her unit. She had been one of the few survivors.

Halduron looked at the paper Lilana had delivered to Lor’themar. In a shaky hand, she had written several names. He didn’t know some of them, rangers in other units probably, or relatives - hers or others’. He placed a few. _Alina. Denyelle. Thandel. Koltira._ And….

 _Velonara_.

He froze. He needed Lor’themar to get to the point of this before he murdered him.

“She saw several of our own,” Lor’themar said carefully. “She said they weren’t… _right_.” He paused a moment and closed his single eye, and Halduron’s blood ran cold. “I’m sorry, my friend.”

_No._

“Velonara is...” He couldn’t bring himself to say it, and Halduron didn’t want him to. 

_Please no._

Halduron crumpled Lilana’s scrap of paper in his fist, his nails digging into the meat of his palm. He stared very hard at the ground, every muscle wound tight. Lor’themar gently laid a hand on his shoulder, and he fought off the urge to punch the other man reflexively in the face. 

“We’ll avenge her,” Lor’themar promised, but Halduron found the sentiment comforted him less than when his friend said the same about Sylvanas.

* * *

_“Handpicked!”_

_“I know.”_

_“By Sylvanas Windrunner!”_

_“I know!” A chuckle._

_Velonara laid back in the cool grass, her eyes heavy with emotion and sleep, her hair spread about her in a golden crown. Halduron propped himself up on an elbow beside her, watching the expressions on her face. Idly he traced one bare shoulder._

_“At this rate, you’ll be promoted before me, Ranger,” he teased, he himself already a Ranger Captain. It was something he teased her about, having risen in the ranks more quickly than she had, something she credited entirely on his hanging around Lor’themar. (“The man attracts attention,” she’d said once.) She swatted him._

_“_ You _weren’t picked by the Ranger General,” she lauded. “Sylvanas doesn’t even like you.”_

_“No she does not,” Halduron agreed. “I don’t think I’d want to serve on her company. Too many opportunities for her to murder me and claim it was an accident.”_

_“I’ve wanted to do that many times over the centuries.”_

_“And yet here we are,” Halduron purred, pulling her close. He threw one bare leg over her, concerned at her shiver._

_“I’m in this for the long con,” Velonara breathed, the dew cold against her bare skin. She threaded her fingers through his hair, hair she loved and which he’d taken to wearing longer (though he would not admit it). He grinned and pressed the barest hint of his lips against her skin, whispers of touch along her ear and the length of her neck._

_“Oh?” he murmured. “It seems you’ve broken a cardinal rule.” He nipped, lightly, at the pulse point in her neck, and then bit harder and growled, “You’ve fallen in love with me, little lynx.”_

_A soft sound escaped Velonara’s lips as her eyes closed and she arched into him. “And you with me,” she said, remembering herself and flattening her back to the grass again. Oh, of course she would be so stubborn today, Halduron mused, making him work for every slight affection. He kissed her, and sighed into her skin as she pulled away, intent on her game._

_“Yes.” He kissed the word into her skin. “Yes, I have.” He closed his eyes. By the Sunwell, he was ass over tits in love with this woman. Every look, every touch, every smile and tease － he could not, in his own way, stop saying that he loved her._

_“Dalah’surfal,” his little lynx murmured, her voice near his ear, and he shivered a little at the word._ My beloved _, she’d called him. The endearment wrapped around him, around them, like a soft blanket in the early morning air, claiming him as hers more obviously than any touch or kiss. He nuzzled into her hair and enveloped her in the warmth of his body, hoping for a few hours’ sleep before the dawn._

* * *

When was the last time he had seen Velonara? It had to have been… By the Sunwell, it had to have been at least six months ago… She had been so excited. Handpicked to join the Ranger General’s own company… Lor’themar had made himself scarce (Halduron may have thrown a pipe and a wineskin at him as a bribe), and Halduron had swept Velonara into the forest, where they’d made love under the stars…

_*~*~*_

_“You’re disgusting,” were the first words she had ever said to him. To be fair, at that moment, covered in lynx scat and mud, with leaves and twigs in his hair, Halduron was sure he was._

_“I prefer to be called Halduron,” he said, with a lopsided grin. He was fresh from Silvermoon, green and wide eyed, eager to prove himself with bow and arrow, ready to throw himself at the Amani menace, itching to be free of stuffy city air and out in the open of the forest._

_“I didn’t ask,” Velonara scowled (though at the time he hadn’t known her name). “Get cleaned up. Captain Orestes will be furious if he sees you like that.”_

_Lor’themar joined him shortly after, his friend from training camp. He was in a similar state as Halduron, minus the lynx scat. “This is going to be fantastic,” Lor’themar declared._

_“Mm.” Halduron nodded, scraping the scat from his boots. “Fantastic.” So long as the rangers weren’t all as cold as that one, it would be._

_*_

_Dodge. Pivot. Parry. Thrust._

_Dodge. Pivot. Parry. Thrust._

_Dodge. Pivot. Parry. Thrust._

_Dodge. Pivot. Parry. Thr－_

_Halduron landed on his face in the dirt. And today had been going so well too. Furious, he scrambled to his feet._

_“That was dirty!” he accused. His sparring partner, Velonara, stared him down._

_“You think trolls will fight fair?” she challenged._

_By the Sunwell, he could not stand this elf. The feeling, it seemed, was entirely mutual._

_“The point of the exercise is to prepare you, Brightwing.”_

_Halduron hated when she lectured. She wasn’t that much more advanced than he was. She didn’t know that much more than he did. She had no right to alter the sets._

_“You never take anything seriously,” she went on. “You’re always goofing off with Theron. You’re going to get yourself killed because you never even managed to memorize a basic training routine!”_

_Halduron tightened his grip on the pommel of his sword and fantasized briefly about bringing it down on Velonara’s head. No. He would be the bigger person here. He would not attack her. He would be calm. He would walk away. He would not let her get to him. He would turn around and find a different partner. Someone who would do the set properly._

_“That’s right, Brightwing,” Velonara said behind his back. “Walk away. You do everything half-assed and leave everything unfinished anyway. Why not your training?” She scoffed. “Hopefully the Amani will kill you quickly.”_

_Halduron Brightwing was not a good man._

_“You’ve never－” He spun around, “－even seen－” and lunged, “－a Lightdamned troll!” Halduron brought his sword down with all the force he had, and he saw Velonara’s eyes widen as she brought hers up to block it. “You talk all－ this－hawk－strider－shit,” he spat, punctuating each word with another blow, “and you haven’t been on a_ single _scouting mission to Zeb’Watha!”_

_The other rangers were starting to look at them._

_“I at least know how to conduct myself around the enemy!” Velonara hissed, unable to do anything but use the flat of her blade to block Halduron’s blows. “I won’t get shot full of arrows by a horde of savages!”_

_“No,” Halduron agreed, “you’ll get shot full of arrows by the rest of us!”_

_Some of Velonara’s friends started jeering. Lor’themar broke away from his partner to try and pull Halduron off. Velonara’s eyes flashed._

_“Even that would be a better death than any of the stupid shit that could happen to you!” she snarled, throwing off his blade and hitting back in earnest. “Falling out of trees! The rock slide! The lynx in camp! Nearly drowning!” Her blade was a blur, a line of silver in the air. “I’ve never met anyone so determined to meet his own death!”_

_“Halduron! Hey! Come on!” Lor’themar shouted, trying to reach for his friend and keep all his limbs at the same time._

_“_ **_What is going on here?_ ** _"_ _came a thunderous voice. With the exception of Velonara and Halduron, the rangers all froze as Captain Orestes appeared in the yard, his face a mask of fury. “Put your weapons down!”_

_Lor’themar seized his chance and tackled Halduron, his sword falling to the grass, as one of Velonara’s friends did the same to her. The two were still glaring daggers at each other even as the Captain approached._

_They had spent a very long two days without meals for that fight. Light and Sunwell and Silvermoon herself, Halduron_ hated _Ranger Velonara._

_*_

_It was Midsummer, and he was drunk. It was Lor’themar’s fault. He’d said Koltira was crabby, so Halduron had bought three bottles of Fire Brew and given one to Lor’themar and one to Koltira and said, “Drink, you crabby bastard,” and Koltira drank, the crabby bastard._

_It was Midsummer, and he was drunk, but so were a lot of the rangers. Ariele and Marillion wore crowns of burning blossoms in their hair, dancing around the Ribbon Pole. Music drifted through the air and the vendors sold sausages and pie and fire-toasted buns. Halduron nearly laughed himself sick when he watched Koltira attempt to juggle torches and set fire to his cloak._

_It was Midsummer, and he was drunk, and he was watching the bonfire in a haze. He’d bought a handful of burning blossoms and sat with them in his lap, weaving the stems over and under each other in the shape of a crown. He’d hoped to place it upon the head of a pretty girl - one of the rangers, or one of the villagers. Officially Midsummer was a spiritual occasion, but the holiday often saw many more couples by its end than at its beginning. It was romantic, Halduron supposed, to watch the sky alight in fire at the end of the holiday._

_It was Midsummer, and he was drunk, and he was alone, because Koltira had stalked off swearing and charred, and Lor’themar had disappeared with a girl clad in white priestess robes (Halduron swore her name would come to him in a minute), and Halduron had only the remains of his Fire Brew and his crown of burning blossoms, and a seat the perfect ways away from the bonfire to watch for the fireworks that signaled the end. His stomach was full of festival food, his skin warm from the fires, and he thought at that moment that Midsummer was his favorite holiday of the year._

_“May I sit with you?”_

_Halduron looked up and saw Velonara looking down, and the looks on their faces － comfortable and soft － surprised the both of them._

_“Oh,” she said, her face attempting to arrange itself into the scowl she always had for him, and failing, “it’s_ you _.” She was holding her own bottle of Fire Brew－ an entire bottle! Not just a cup, but a bottle like a real alcoholic ranger!－ and was clearly as drunk as he was. “Nevermind.” She turned to leave, to find another spot away from him, swaying on her feet, but drunk as she was, she didn’t snap around with her usual ferocity._

_“No, wait,” Halduron said, “it’s okay.” He took a swig of Fire Brew and looked back at her. “It’s the last day of Midsummer. Sit down.”_

_Wobbling a little, Velonara still managed to raise an eyebrow at him._

_“Truce?” Halduron offered. “For the holiday?”_

_A beat._

_And then she was sitting down, her face relaxing as her legs gave way, unable to support her. “Truce,” she agreed quietly (although she was drunk, and so she was probably much too loud), and raised her drink at him in a cheers. He raised his back and turned his eyes skyward, thoughts of Velonara already forgotten as he took long, gratuitous gulps of his drink._

_It was Midsummer, and he was drunk, and he was sitting beside a woman he hated, except right that night he didn’t quite hate her, because when the fireworks started going off and the sky was alight, he heard a sharp intake of breath beside him and he looked. He looked and he saw the fire reflected on Velonara’s face, her cheeks flushed from drink, eyes wide as she watched the sky almost in awe, and Halduron thought, in that moment, that she looked… quite pretty._

_It was Midsummer and he was drunk, and he was quite sure it was the Fire Brew’s doing (and it was Lor’themar’s fault for the Fire Brew, he reminded himself), and he had already resigned himself to wearing his own burning blossom crown, but as he looked at Velonara once or twice more during the fireworks show, he found his fingers closing around the delicate flowers, and he found his body leaning toward her. And Velonara, for all her complaining about how he never paid attention, didn’t notice him at all until he’d placed the crown on her head, where it nestled prettily against her golden hair._

_“Wha－” Velonara reached a hand up, her fingers brushing blossom petals, and spun to look at Halduron, an unreadable look on her face._

_Halduron wasn’t sure of the look on his own face - he normally scowled at her as fiercely as she scowled at him － but neither of them were scowling now. “Happy Midsummer, Velonara,” he said simply, and he sat back, and returned to his brew, and did not look at her for the rest of the night._

_He left as soon as the sky darkened again, the fireworks and the holiday over, and passed Koltira, who was glaring at his singed cloak._

_“Did you find a girl?” Koltira asked grumpily, in a manner suggesting that he had not and was still smarting that his brother had found not one but two._

_Halduron walked right by, leaving a “No” in his wake._

_“Yeah,” Koltira muttered. “I hate this Lightdamned holiday too.”_

_*_

_It had been centuries since they had first met. Nearly six of them. They were older now, a little wiser. Velonara still lectured, and Halduron still bumbled. He didn’t know when he’d stopped hating her. It wasn’t that Midsummer, two hundred years ago. But he did, one day, stop hating her. She’d just become Velonara, just Velonara, to him. And at some point, he’d become just Halduron to her. The change had definitely been noted among their fellow rangers._

_Lor’themar, now a Captain, was trying not to roll his eyes as he untacked his hawkstrider. He had heard his friend flirt many times over the years, but watching him with Velonara made him want to vomit._

_Halduron was leaning against the wall of the stable, was pressed close to Velonara, one hand beside her head. His other hand played with a loose strand of her hair as he spoke quietly to her._

_“You would not,” Velonara said coolly._

_“Wouldn’t I?” Halduron countered, cocky and confident and nothing like he was four hundred years ago. He leaned closer, so close he could feel her cheek against his, warm and coloring as his lips just grazed the skin of her ear. “There is very little I dare not do, little lynx,” he breathed, and he would be a liar if he denied that the shiver that passed through her in that moment didn’t excite him. “Would you like to test me?”_

_Velonara’s breath hitched, and for just a moment Halduron thought she would give in － until she pushed him away, face flushed, ears red._

_“You forget yourself, Brightwing,” she growled, although there was no ice in it. There had been no real bite to her words in decades. She gathered her bow and left the stables, and Halduron watched her, eyes twinkling merrily._

_“I think all that bloodthistle’s finally gone to your head,” came Lor’themar’s voice, followed by a squawk and the sound of feed being poured in the trough._

_Halduron laughed. “Learned a thing or two, did you?”_

_“Mm. I learned how to anger a woman.” Lor’themar latched his hawkstrider’s stall, hung up the bridle, and joined his friend. Halduron shook his head._

_“She’s not angry,” he said, a fond grin on his face._

_Lor’themar’s eyebrows shot into his hairline. “Oh really?”_

_“She’s just stubborn,” Halduron assured him. “She’ll come around.”_

_“And shoot you full of arrows.”_

_Halduron laughed. “I daresay I may actually be_ less _endearing to her as a training dummy.”_

_Lor’themar looked at him fondly. “I say, friend,” he began, “when did this attitude come about? Only a few decades ago she would have put your eye out for what you just pulled.”_

_“And I would have gagged at the thought of saying it,” Halduron agreed. He thought, and several moments flashed in his mind’s eye. Velonara quietly fletching arrows in the shade. Velonara patiently teaching the new ranger Lilana the finer points of fighting with daggers. Velonara taking down three Amani on her own, using her bow as a mace and an arrow as a dagger. Velonara swimming in the Elrendar. Velonara at Midsummer, all those years ago, staring at him with his crown of burning blossoms in her hair._

_“I’ve no idea,” he said finally. Lor’themar was his best friend, but those moments Halduron wanted to keep for himself. Lor’themar did not need to know._

_His friend looked at him thoughtfully before nodding. “I know the feeling,” he admitted. “Although my feelings were not… quite utter hatred, for Liadrin.” He grinned._

_“Hatred_ and _contempt,” Halduron corrected._

 _“Maybe_ she’s _smoking too much bloodthistle,” Lor’themar offered, and the sound of their laughter echoed long and loud out into the yard._

_*_

_He saw stars the day he first kissed her, and her lips tasted like wine and saltwater. It was the most delicious thing he’d ever enjoyed, and his fingers drifted to his lips long into the night afterward, remembering the taste._

_He saw stars the day he first took her in his arms, and she molded to him as if she were made to, as if they were two pieces of one whole, and when he felt her hands on him he thought he would die happy at that very moment._

_He saw stars the day they first made love, and though neither were virgins he had wanted it to be special. And even though it was only in the grass under a great tree, and it was raining and their skin prickly with gooseflesh, it had been special and Halduron knew then that they had wasted nearly a thousand years hating each other when they could have had this, and he buried his face in her shoulder and_ breathed _, because he was_ home _,_ she _was home._

_*~*~*_

Halduron didn’t know how he would have gone on if he’d had to see her. He was blissfully, mercifully, thankfully spared, his vision clouded with skeletons and ghouls and living rangers, and Lor’themar telling him he needed to sleep, and Lor’themar or Liadrin placing food in front of him and telling him he needed to eat. 

Because Lor’themar’s love had survived unscathed. Belo’vir had teleported her out of harm’s way, and when Lor’themar saw her, her priestess robes filthy and torn, he ran. He ran to her and pulled her close and in that moment Halduron felt a surge of jealousy and anger and hatred so hot he couldn’t breathe, and he had to leave before he said something he’d regret. He still felt angry, when he saw Liadrin, and then shame because it was a terrible thing to begrudge Lor’themar his good fortune and it was, in fact, a terribly _good_ thing that Liadrin had survived, for she flitted through the the wounded at blinding speed, calling forth the Light so that they would lose no more elves. And then Halduron would feel angry again at his shame, because if he were a better man, he would never have been angry or shameful at all. 

Whenever he felt angry, he’d nock an arrow in his bow and loose it at some Scourge. 

Halduron Brightwing was angry very often. And the tragedies just kept coming. King Anasterian was slain on Quel’Danas. The Sunwell was polluted, and then destroyed. The trolls were raiding in the south. The final death toll had been taken, and nearly 85% of their _entire race_ had been wiped out. 

There were many Scourge, some undead, some truly dead, with Halduron’s arrows in them. 

And then came news which elicited many different feelings from him. Indeed, it left many in the ruined Spire with conflicting feelings as the ragged interim government of Silvermoon listened to the new Grand Magister read from a ripped piece of parchment. The man was garbed in a dirty red robe, his high collar torn but mostly intact and masking his reaction to the words: 

_A force of Scourge has broken free of the will of the Lich King._

The prince’s eyebrows furrowed, and he immediately began plying the magister with questions. Halduron did not hear them. The new Warden of the Sunwell was listening with her lips pursed, dark circles under her eyes. Lor’themar was looking at him, concern plain on his still healing face. (Someone _－_ perhaps Liadrin _－_ had finally held him down long enough to tend properly to the gaping wound that had been his eye and wrangled him into a clean bandage.) Halduron stared past the look in his friend’s remaining eye, somewhere to the left at a spot on the wall. He did not want to answer Lor’themar’s questions. He did not want to answer them, himself.

* * *

He met with her once. Only once. 

Many of their fallen brethren returned to Silvermoon, to ask Lor’themar, in Kael’thas’s absence, if they may return to the land they had been born in and had died for. For months, after the prince and a small army of elves left with Illidan Stormrage in search of a new source of mana to sustain them all, he, Lor’themar, and the new Grand Magister met with undead elf after undead elf, and Lor’themar told them all the same thing: 

“I will never forbid a child of Quel’Thalas from coming home.”

Some of the visitors were easier to handle than others. All elves revere life; the undead are unnatural, twisted, and horrifying. To see someone one had known personally in life become such a thing was a kick in the gut. Guard rotations were cut down to hourly shifts after so many of them broke into hysterics at seeing their friends and families. But Halduron and Lor’themar were not so lucky. They had to weather them all. 

Secretly Halduron hoped the undead would settle in the ruined Capital City of Lordaeron. Sylvanas had not come herself, and for that, he and Lor’themar were immensely relieved. He didn’t know if Lor’themar was ready to face what their former superior had become; Halduron knew he wasn’t. But she had sent a letter: she had claimed Capital City for those undead who were not mindless thralls, she said. Anyone who wished to settle there was welcome. 

They had seen several of their fallen colleagues, the so-called dark rangers. It had been difficult, and Halduron counted himself lucky that most of them he did not know personally. Worse was Koltira, now a death knight bearing the name Deathweaver. Halduron and Lor’themar had both been uncomfortable and pained to see what had become of their friend. His skin had a pale, waxy, and drawn look to it, and the blue of his eyes held none of the warmth he’d had in life. He radiated chill, and Halduron could not decide if it was metaphorical or physical. When Koltira left, he and Lor’themar could finally breathe, and that night had drank heavily enough that Halduron had no memory of getting back to his chambers in the Spire, or even of getting up the next morning. 

Halduron didn’t know if he wanted Velonara to walk into the Spire, to catch him off guard like the rest of the undead elves. He didn’t know if he could bear it. He still carried the scrap of paper from so many months ago, the list written by Ranger Lilana of the undead Farstriders she’d seen. It was crumpled and worn from being balled up and smoothed out time and again. More often than not, Halduron would pull the scrap out to stare at Lilana’s wobbly writing, trace the ink of each letter with his eyes. V-E-L-O-N-A-R-A. Convince himself it was real. He’d seen nearly everyone else on Lilana’s list, or heard about them. He didn’t know if he wanted Velonara to be one of the freed undead, the so-called Forsaken, with endless life and a will of her own, or if he wanted her to still be under the control of Arthas, so that he may perform one last act of love and give her a true death, to free her from the slave that the Lich King had forced her to become. The thought kept him up at night. 

And then the letter came.

It was addressed to him at the Court of the Sun, and Halduron could think of few people who knew he’d been promoted. It was addressed to him in flowing, looping script, and Halduron could think of fewer people still with such handwriting. His stomach filled with dread as he thanked the assistant and closed the door to the Ranger General’s office. Sylvanas’s office. He sat down at the Ranger General’s desk, Sylvanas’s desk, and stared at the letter. It had been closed with wax but there was no seal imprint. Impulsively he broke the wax, but he did not open the letter. He did not know if he wanted to read it. 

He took a deep breath. He chewed his lip. Exhaled. Put the letter in his drawer. Took it back out. Sighed. Ran a hand through his hair. Folded the letter and put it under a paperweight. And so on for the better part of an hour, until his curiosity finally got the better of him, and he very cautiously, as though approaching an angry dragonhawk, unfolded the letter.

> _Dalah'surfal Halduron,_
> 
> _I hope this letter finds you in good health. I have been unable to learn much about your recent activities and I do not want to pester our comrades who trickle in from Quel’Thalas. They are finding it difficult enough to be undead, and worse to be feared and even hated by their friends and families. A few of them mentioned that you are now working with the interim government in Silvermoon, and I hope this letter finds you there._
> 
> _I_ _must confess I did not think you would want to see me. Our brethren are brave to return home but I am, at my core, a coward. I cannot face my family, and I am afraid to face you. What would you think to see me like this? I am not sure what I think, myself. Would you despise me?_
> 
> _Sylvanas has turned the human Capital City into the Undercity. It and Lordaeron are nowhere near as beautiful as Quel’Thalas. Lordaeron is cold and dreary, and the Undercity is clammy and I never feel properly dry, but we are safe here from the Scourge and those who wish to harm us. I guess that’s all we can really ask right now._
> 
> _I should like to see you, if you are willing. I miss you so desperately. I should like to find the nearest hawkstrider and run him as fast as he can to Silvermoon － I have never asked permission to act and you have teased me many a time for it － but I do not want to hurt you, Halduron. If seeing me would cause you pain, I will stay away from you forever, but if staying away would also cause you pain, I would like to alleviate it as soon as I can._
> 
> _Whatever you decide, please understand this, my love, and know, that I love you, and will always love you, until the stars do fall from the sky, until the dragons age and turn to dust and time stops, and the Great Dark Beyond takes us all. No matter the answer, I eagerly await your reply._
> 
> _All my love,_
> 
> _Your little lynx_

Halduron read the letter, and read it again. And read it a third time. Tears obscured his vision, until all the words blurred together, and he pushed the letter away from him, unwilling to smear a single precious word. And finally, Halduron Brightwing mourned for what he had lost, his face buried in his hands.

* * *

_He sat there on his ass in the river, fist closed tightly around what he’d nearly lost, tailbone smarting from landing on it, as Velonara towered above him, tears in her eyes as she laughed and laughed._

_“You don’t have to take such pleasure in it,” he said good naturedly, splashing her. He had half a mind to toss her over the Falls and jump over after her. (He and Lor’themar had done that once, and oh, it had been exhilarating. He still had the scar.)_

_Velonara wiped at her face and offered a hand to haul him to his feet. “What did you even trip over?” she giggled. Halduron carefully shuffled backwards onto a large, flat,_ safe _rock and pulled Velonara into his lap. “You’re getting me wet!” she protested._

_“Oh, am I?” he asked suggestively, pressing a wet kiss to her cheek, and she laughed. He took her hand in his and she settled against him, grumbling for the sake of grumbling that she looked just as frightful as he did now, but he could see the peeks she snuck at their entwined hands, the smile tugging at her lips._

_"Who said I'd agree?" she teased, her thumb tracing the band he'd placed on her finger. He rested his head on her shoulder, pressed his lips to the exposed skin at her collar._

_"I did," he teased back, and expected the huff she gave him. She looked over her shoulder at him, trying to look indignant and failing._

_"You can't make my decisions for me, Brightwing," she scolded, and her tone rose as his grin spread, and soon he was laughing and she was trying not to. "I will not marry you!" she declared. "You will marry me!"_

_"You're impossible," he huffed in his best Velonara imitation, and when she tried to slug him in the shoulder, he caught her hand and stole her lips in a kiss, her laugh shared between them like a secret._

* * *

That new Grand Magister, Rommath, had been nothing but difficult since Lor’themar and Halduron had been ushered into office, but he had been surprisingly kind in this. With the same bark he put into all of his insults, he had called to Halduron, who had been pacing around the lower offices of the Spire like an addled hawkstrider.

“Brightwing!” he’d snapped, and Halduron had nearly lost it and pulled his dagger on the mage right there, because he could not put up with the man’s vitriol today of all days. Somehow, though, he managed to keep control of himself, and the mage continued in clipped tones, “There is a sitting room just down this hall,” and with a jerk of his head motioned for Halduron to follow. It was only a short walk from the main atrium, four doors down. He watched the mage unlock the door － most of the offices in the Spire were locked with magic.

“Should you require it, this room will offer a certain level of privacy,” the Grand Magister told him. At Halduron’s confusion, he added stiffly, “For your… _meeting_ , today.” 

Halduron had not even considered where he would speak to her. They had spoken to every other elf in the atrium. He stared at the mage. 

“Th-thank you,” he managed to choke out, overcome all at once with stress and grief and gratitude. Grand Magister Rommath gave him the barest nod before saying, with a degree less bite, “We all must do things we do not want to do. Go out into the atrium with our Regent Lord and stop running about the palace like a child.”

Standing there an hour ago, with only the prickly Grand Magister hissing in his ear, Halduron had felt stronger. They had seen several of the undead elves today. Lor’themar had started telling them about Sylvanas’s Undercity, and it no longer sounded as though he would rather they go there (even though he would). 

And then there she was. 

Halduron was rolling his eyes as the Grand Magister gave him a verbal lashing (no one gave more vicious dressing downs than Sylvanas Windrunner, and Halduron had survived those with his dignity more or less intact) when he saw Lor’themar stiffen out of the corner of his eye. He followed his friend’s gaze and felt several things all at once. 

_They were wrong._

_She’s alive._

_She’s here._

_She’s fine._

_She’s beautiful._

_She’s… too pale._

_She’s too stiff._

_She’s not…_ right.

_She’s dead… but…_

Velonara approached carefully, her chin held high. She still wore the uniform of a Farstrider, as had the other fallen rangers. Her face was proud, as it had been in life.

“Lor’themar,” she said in greeting. She nodded at the Grand Magister, who nodded back, frowning. And then she turned to Halduron, and the world stopped. 

He didn’t remember walking to that office the Grand Magister had shown him. He didn’t even know if they were sitting down. He only knew that she was here in front of him and it _wasn’t_ her but it _was_. 

Her skin was ashen but clean, unlike the other Farstriders who had come. Her golden hair had been carefully combed and even washed. Three of her nails were broken, and she was missing a fourth. But her eyes… Her beautiful eyes, as pale and shimmering blue as the mana wyrms that lived on Sunstrider Isle… Those eyes now gleamed a deep, unsettling red. 

“Velonara,” he breathed, and he could forget the eyes, because for twenty-six days she had been dead and perhaps a minion of the Scourge, and he had not seen her for one hundred and eighty-four days before that, and before he could stop himself or think, he was gathering her in his arms, pulling her to him and holding her against his chest, and she was here and real and _so terribly cold…_

He felt her arms encircle him hesitantly, and they were stiff, and freezing. He could feel all ten of her fingers through the fabric of his tunic, and her body under his own hand felt like ice. He was distinctly aware somewhere in the back of his mind that he could not hear her breathing, could not hear her heart beating, and as much as he wanted to blame that on his own loudness, as desperately as he needed it to be because of him _－_ because he had always been so _loud_ , he knew. He knew he couldn’t hear these things because _they weren’t there_.

His skin erupted in gooseflesh and he was suddenly gripped with an overwhelming need to _get away_. He felt her press her cold forehead to his chest and heard a sigh that might have been his name. “DaIah’surfal, I have missed you,” he heard her say, and without missing a beat, emotion thick in his voice, he murmured, “And I you, little lynx.”

Halduron felt as though he’d been kissed by death. He stared at a distant point on the wall, willing himself to be stone, the walls of Zul’Aman. He tried to be the mountains themselves, but Velonara knew. He could not, for the love he bore her, shove her body away, and so she carefully separated them, and stood so that she did not touch him. There was pain on Velonara’s face, and Halduron had caused it. He felt like a monster.

“I’m sorry.” 

It came out in a whisper.

Velonara shook her head. She couldn’t cry as he did － she had no tears － but she cried all the same. She wrapped her arms around herself and pressed a hand to her mouth and cried, and a better man than Halduron Brightwing would swallow his revulsion at the corpse before him and take her back in his arms, but Halduron Brightwing was not a good man. He was not, and the shame he felt because he could not bear to touch her only added to his misery. He scrubbed a callused hand over his face but more tears came with each swipe until he gave up, gave in to the flood, and they stood there, sobbing and shamed.

It was a long time before either of them spoke.

“I love you,” Halduron murmured, his eyes bloodshot, and Velonara’s voice broke as she affirmed that she loved him back. Her hands shook as she removed a piece of jewelry from them and held it out for him to take. The ring he had given her, so long ago at the river, carved from a hunk of aquamarine he’d found and set in a plain band.

“You should give this to someone else.” Her voice － and not her voice, but more like an _echo_ of her voice － shook as much as her hands. “Someone you can actually marry.” And by the Sunwell, he was going to start crying again.

He shook his head. “I gave that to _you_ ,” he said softly. “I gave _myself_ to _you_.” His eyes were burning and a moment later the tears came. “There won’t be anyone else.”

Velonara bit her lip, bit back a sob. “How can you say that?” she demanded. “Halduron, there’s no future for us!”

“There won’t be anyone else,” he repeated, his voice thick. His lips trembled as he spoke. “I won’t get married. There was only ever you.” He looked directly into her red eyes, gently pushing away her outstretched hand and ignoring the chill that shot through him. 

“I have loved you from the day I put that burning blossom crown on your head,” he told her, as steadily as he could. “Do you remember?”

Velonara’s eyes were wide. She nodded, and her own voice was no more than a whisper. “Yes.”

“If you can love me until the stars fall, I can love you longer than that,” he challenged, voice breaking, and Velonara made a noise that was both a laugh and a sob.

“You’re such a stubborn ass!”

The air was thick with mourning, with fresh grief.

“I know...”

In the end, he didn’t remember her leave. She took his ring with her, and went back to the Undercity, and Halduron fell to his knees on the floor of the private sitting room and sobbed until it hurt to breathe.

* * *

_They’d spoken of it in their own way, in taunts and challenges and dares. Halduron and Velonara Brightwing would live in the south where they had met, perhaps near the bay. They would be Farstriders, of course, for nothing could settle the wild inside them roaring to be free, no matter how badly their aristocratic families wished it. Halduron wanted a gaggle of children, a veritable army of Farstriders to ride the army of hawkstriders he wanted to raise, and Velonara wanted many children but perhaps not an army (though she would concede to the hawkstriders, for she knew how Halduron loved them). Lor’themar had told Halduron many a time he envied his friend, for though Liadrin understood his need to frolic about the forests, she still desired a home. For the Brightwings, their future home would be merely a formality, something to satisfy their noble families. The forests called to them and they would answer, wild and free under the trees and stars._

_“I don’t need a hearth and bed to be happy,” Velonara had scoffed, the first and only time Halduron had mentioned it. She had taken his face in her hands and fixed him with such a stare that his protests died on his lips. “I only need you.”_

_And then Arthas had come. He had ripped that dream as cleanly from their hands as a sword slicing through meat. In an instant, gone were the promises of golden-haired children and a home on the bay. Gone was the life spent traipsing through the forest, hawkstriders and family in tow._

_Velonara stood proudly with her company as the horde of undead descended on Thalassian Pass. She led the fallback to Morningstar when the Pass fell. Velonara watched as one by one, Farstriders fell before the might of the Scourge. She let fly arrow after arrow. She clung to that dream, that future she’d spoken of with Halduron, even as Arthas dismounted his hideous decaying horse and stormed toward her. She told herself she was not afraid._

_That dream － and Velonara － died the moment Arthas skewered her upon Frostmourne. Half a day’s ride away, as Velonara breathed her last breath, Halduron felt a spasm of fear, his own breath catching in his throat._

* * *

Halduron Brightwing had a reputation. The more polite called him a ladies’ man. Grand Magister Rommath, when he was feeling kind, called him a whore. Regent Lord Lor’themar Theron called him troubled. 

“Halduron?” The voice followed two firm knocks. “Halduron, are you home?”

Halduron sighed from his bedroom. “No!”

Lor’themar sighed. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine!”

“Can you let me in?”

“No!” Halduron squawked, indignant. “It’s my day off! I’ll see you tomorrow!”

Halduron waited for Lor’themar to say something and, when he did not, turned back to the woman below him. Jovia or something. He didn’t keep track anymore. He thought this one worked at the inn. Or maybe the tavern? Or the inn that had a tavern? 

“He seems concerned about you,” maybe Jovia said. “That’s sweet of him.”

“He’s just being a bother,” Halduron scoffed, “doesn’t know when to stop talking.” And then he made her stop talking, her moans echoing through his chambers. 

Halduron Brightwing had a reputation. He was well known on Murder Row, in the red light district, where he tipped well and treated the girls better. He’d slept with a great deal of the innkeeps and barmaids. Rommath had threatened him with castration by fire if he slept with another one of the his apprentices. But no one ever stuck. Once they showed the slightest interest in him beyond sex, Halduron moved on. They were not friends. They were not people he saw outside of his bedroom. (They were never Farstriders.) He did not put his lips on them. He sent for them, they had sex, and he sent them away. 

He treated sex the way Rommath treated… well, everybody. 

Halduron pondered this after he’d sent whoever she was away. The closest he’d been to a woman in the past ten years was Liadrin, and only because she was Lor’themar’s. He and Liadrin shared an appreciation for animals that Halduron admired. And he sometimes would talk to his Farstriders. His Ranger Lord was even a woman. But no. Halduron was only really close to Liadrin, and once she started inquiring as to his personal life (no doubt at Lor’themar’s behest), he changed the subject. 

So much had happened in the past ten years. The last Sunstrider had died, butchered by his own people after going mad and allying with the Burning Legion, and was now buried in an unmarked grave on Quel’Danas. Half of Silvermoon was rebuilt to even better than she was before, as were the Magister’s Terrace and the Sunwell Plateau. His best friend was not romping in the woods like a wild beast but instead was leading their nation, and he himself was part of the Triumvirate as Silvermoon’s Ranger General (and he was a great deal more satisfied with his position than Lor'themar with his). And while much of the treasury had gone into rebuilding and aiding the citizens who were left in the wake of the destruction, Lor’themar had dedicated a modest amount for the countless monuments that now dotted Quel’Thalas. Some memorialized great battles, others great heroes, several their great and much missed king. Many were for individuals and the lost. A large statue of Sylvanas stood at the Windrunner Spire, her family’s estate, in memory of all she did as Ranger General. Every Farstrider in Quel’Thalas had gone to that dedication. Halduron had commissioned one himself, to stand at the gates of the former Morningstar City and the remains of the great tree Thas’alah, razed and burned and rebuilt as Deatholme by that bastard Drathir. He had learned the name of every Farstrider who had fought and died at the Battle of Thalassian Pass, mostly from the rangers who had been there, raised as undead. He had learned, with a swell of pride that still hurt, even after all this time, that Velonara had been the last Farstrider standing, the last of the company to fall before the Scourge. 

He laid back in his bed and stared up at his ceiling. _Velonara_ … _I’ve kept my promise, little lynx. Ten years is so short compared to the centuries we had, but not one day of those ten years have I loved anyone but you._

He would not, could not give himself to anyone the way he’d given himself to Velonara. His heart ached at the very thought of it. They could have his body － the Scourge had proven that bodies were useless, empty things － but they would not have his soul, his heart. The things that made him Halduron. 

_He remembered how she would wrinkle her nose at him, in the beginning, like he was something particularly filthy she did not want to step in._

_He remembered how hard he had tried not to show how badly he’d hurt from the beating she’d given him in training the day before._

_He remembered how they’d utterly destroyed the old troll training dummy, and most of their arrows, trying to outshoot each other until the wee hours of the morning, neither refusing to yield to the other until Sylvanas found them and screamed bloody murder._

_He remembered lazily watching her scrabble up a tree like a spider, more surefooted than he was, raise a finger to her lips, and then drop down on top of Alina and Loralin, and how her loud, open-mouthed laughter as her friends thwapped her with their bows was the most beautiful thing he’d ever heard._

_Remembered putting the burning blossom crown atop her head and wondering if kissing her would earn him a slap or an arrow through the throat._

_Remembered the shine in her golden hair as they raced their hawkstriders down Greenwood Pass, whooping and screaming._

_Remembered the feel of her hand as she’d grabbed his in fright, moments after teasing him for being scared in the Amani catacombs. It had been small and delicate but strong as wire, and when he’d stroked her knuckles with his thumb she had not pulled away._

_The feel of her huddled next to him on a bleary rainy day, and her body underneath his as he wrestled her for keeping the last of the jerky from him._

_The sound of his name on her lips － as a scream, or a shout, a moan, a sigh. His name had never sounded as right as it did formed by her beautiful mouth._

_The warmth of her around him as he pushed into her, that feeling of_ right _and_ belonging _he hadn’t felt before or since._

_The blue of her eyes in the starlight the night before she left with Sylvanas’s company…_

Halduron held on to each and every precious memory, and sometimes, the ache in his heart hurt a little less. 

He has not seen her since that day, ten years ago. He can’t bear it. He knows she can’t bear it. It shames him, that the most of himself he can give her is a promise a decade old. He carries that shame with him like a dark cloud overhead as he walks towards the Royal Exchange, his ears red as he picks up the purchase he paid for yesterday and makes his way back home. (He could have had his assistant do such a simple task, as he has one of those when he’s in the city, but he doesn’t want to see anyone else today. He doesn't have the strength for it.) He stops at the mailbox and pulls his purchase from his cloak, already addressed in the cramped handwriting she’s chided him for again and again. Halduron presses it to his lips and closes his eyes, praying a silent prayer. 

He doesn’t believe in the Light anymore － not many elves do, after the Scourge － but he doesn’t think you have to pray to the Light exactly as long as you mean it. He carefully drops the purchase in the box and continues home, where he climbs back in his bed and ignores Lor’themar the next two times his friend comes to check on him. He doesn’t want Lor’themar to console him today. He just wants to curse the Light, and the Sunwell, and Arthas _fucking_ Menethil, and go back to sleep.

* * *

In the Undercity, a Forsaken man is making rounds, carrying a heavy runecloth bag stuffed to the brim with mail. Forsaken don’t need sleep, and some had (or have) very few personal belongings at all, so accomodations in the Undercity are variable and ever changing. Some Forsaken have jobs or guilds, and their mail can be left at their stalls with the reasonable hope that it won’t be stolen. Some Forsaken travel light and spend their time somewhere different every second of every day, and that makes tracking them down Shadowdamn difficult. 

He always likes when the Dark Rangers get mail. They have apartments in the Royal Quarter and the accommodations never change, which makes his job very pleasant. He always saves the Royal Quarter for last unless the Dark Lady has a lot of mail, but usually the Blightcaller or someone comes and collects anything addressed to Sylvanas personally. He always does enjoy the Royal Quarter though. It’s neat, with no spilled blight or solutions, no rats to gnaw at the peeling skin of his left foot (and he’s just had that foot replaced too!), and the Rangers’ apartments are so _spacious_ compared to the rest of the citizens’. He thinks it might be something like his home when he was alive, or what he thinks he remembers of his home when he was alive. 

For some reason, a lot of the Dark Rangers have admirers of the living sort, and today is a heavy mail day. Lenara herself has a lot of letters with little hearts drawn on them, and if he had eyeballs still, he would roll them. He drops them off without comment though － it’s not his job to comment － and knocks on Ranger Velonara’s door. He has to knock four times before she opens it.

“What.” It is not a question, though it should be, but he’s used to Velonara’s moods by now. When he first started doing the mail, Velonara used to scare the marrow out of him.

“You’ve mail, ma’am,” he says, his voice like gravel crunching underfoot. (He tried once to see why that was: He has gravel in his esophagus.) 

Velonara’s expression softens, just the smallest bit, and she holds her hand out. 

“Is it that time of year again?” he remarks mildly, handing her a package stamped with an emblem bearing a phoenix. 

Velonara is not listening. She carefully unties the ribbon on the box and lifts the lid inch by inch, as though expecting a large swamp beast to come charging out.

“I think it’s safe to open, ma’am,” the Forsaken mail carrier tells her, and Velonara pretends she can not hear him, though she does think him right. Carefully she peels back the lid.

Inside lays a plain locket on a dark chain. It will blend in seamlessly with, and be hidden by, her Dark Ranger armor. She fishes it out from its careful bedding of tissue paper and uses her good nail to open the catch. Inside, in impossibly tiny writing, was an inscription.

_Until the stars fall_

_And the Great Dark_

_Beyond takes us_

_I will love you_

_Longer than you love me_

_-H._

Velonara wishes she could cry then, properly cry with tears instead of screwing up her face and heaving air she doesn’t breathe, as she stares at the little locket and its delicate inscription, today, what should have been her one thousandth, seven hundredth, and sixty-fourth birthday.

The Forsaken mail carrier leans forward to sneak a peek at the locket and lets out a whistle (an eerie sound, given the gap in his teeth and the decay about his head). “That there’s a gift,” he says approvingly. “You’re luckier than most. Even us with someone who’s… you know, one of us, can’t say they’ve been treated so nice. And your husband’s _living_.”

Velonara nods, unable to speak, and then suddenly shuts herself back in her quarters. That doesn’t bother the mail carrier much. He’s used to worse.

Inside, Velonara leans against her door in the dull oil lamplight and sobs. She doesn’t feel lucky. She doesn’t feel lucky at all. She feels cursed. Why was she raised into undeath? Why was she given free will?

With shaking hands, she brings the locket to her lips and kisses it. Every year without fail, on her birthday, at Midsummer, and sometimes just when the hurt becomes too overwhelming, Halduron Brightwing sends her a gift. Sometimes a letter, or a particularly interesting clump of wildflowers or moss he’s found, an unexpectedly large pearl still in its clam shell, and sometimes, _sometimes_ , something truly special, like the ridiculous locket she holds in her hands.

“You stubborn ass!” Velonara cries at the locket. She has never taken off his ring after he’d insisted she keep it. He’d sent her a bracelet that year, woven from leather and silverleaf and hawkstrider feathers, and she’s never taken that off either. Her quarters are littered with tokens of his affection, the flowers pressed into large books once they’d started to wilt, shells and pearls and funny shaped rocks from all over Quel’Thalas deposited carefully, artfully in a vase or two on display. He hasn’t changed in the ten years since her death. He still does for her all the same things he’d done when she was alive, when she breathed, when her blood flowed. 

She thinks, briefly, of when he’d told her he loved her at Elrendar Falls, perched on the wet rocks, their feet dangling in the cascading water, and she’d sighed contentedly and told him she loved him as well, and he had nearly lost her ring in the Falls before he could even show it to her, before he could even ask her to marry him, his perfect proposal ruined by his own clumsy fingers, and she had laughed and laughed and really, that _had_ been perfect for Halduron Brightwing, just perfect.

And if they hadn’t died the day Arthas slew her with Frostmourne, if they hadn’t been cursed, she would not be here in the sewers of the Undercity amongst the skeletons and slowly rotting Forsaken. They would still be part of that perfect dream their younger selves dreamed, in Quel’Thalas, and alive. 

“You stubborn ass,” Velonara sighs, defeated, her thumb stroking the ring Halduron Brightwing had given her long ago.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AUTHOR'S NOTES:** The "new Warden of the Sunwell" is a character to be featured in the Rommath fic I was originally planning to write. She'll show up again.
> 
> Some places mentioned here are taken from Warcraft III. The Dead Scar used to be a road called Greenwood Pass, and that's the road Arthas and the Scourge marched up in the Ghostlands, and the road Halduron and Velonara (and several others) raced their hawkstriders down. 
> 
> Thas'alah was a great world tree that had been planned to be implemented in WoW (and I believe was implemented in WC3) and was written about in the lore. Dar'Khan Drathir burned it and built Deatholme on top of it. I created the city (a small city/large village) of Morningstar sprawled in its roots, also razed. It serves as no more than a major trading hub between Lordaeron and the southern half of Quel'Thalas.
> 
> ****************
> 
> **Little Lynx now has a sequel. Click here to read[Trueshot Remedy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24866617/chapters/60159880).**


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